


Full Circle

by bravest_person_in_Wonderland



Category: Wicked - All Media Types, Wicked - Schwartz/Holzman
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, During Canon, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, My First Work in This Fandom, No Dialogue, Sad Ending, it's more likely than you might think, schedule a free pc check now, who me, writing deep introspective fic about secondary characters?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 17:01:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29887728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bravest_person_in_Wonderland/pseuds/bravest_person_in_Wonderland
Summary: Elphaba and Galinda go to the Emerald City.Glinda comes back alone.Nessarose dies.Elphaba comes full circle.
Relationships: Elphaba Thropp & Galinda Upland, Elphaba Thropp & Nessarose Thropp
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	Full Circle

**Author's Note:**

> introduced a friend to Wicked the other day (Kara Lindsay as G(a)linda is a blessing) and this was born XD

Elphaba and Galinda go to the Emerald City. 

Nessa is happy for them, honestly. She's never had the same kind of dreams her sister has — how could she, when they're so different in every possible way? —, nor ambitions like Galinda's. She's content to stay at Shiz, where she can be with Boq without having to give a single thought to Elphaba's protectiveness. Actually, it's something of a relief. 

Elphaba is as overprotective as she is a dreamer, which is to say, very much so. It would be fine by Nessa if it was genuine — she's been sheltered and doted on her entire life due to her disability, by now she's used to it —, but she's always had the impression that Elphaba cares for her out of guilt. _That_ is the thing that grates on Nessa's nerves. 

Because to Elphaba, everything is her fault. It all comes back to her greenishness, in Elphaba's mind — if she had been born a normal color, Father wouldn't have made Mother chew the milkflowers, and Nessa would be able to walk. If Elphaba was normal, everything would be as perfect as it seems to be for everyone else. 

Nessa knows that life isn't as perfect and dreamy as her sister seems to think it is for other people — not-green people, not-crippled people — and she also knows that Elphaba is wrong. Her sister has an enormous guilt complex, putting everyone else's choices on her own shoulders, which is a problem of its own. It's almost narcissism, the way she thinks every bad thing that happens is always somehow her fault. But Nessa doesn't blame her for any of it, and she never has. 

Yes, she's always secretly harbored a small hope that Elphaba's natural talent and power could someday give her a way to walk, but she isn't deluded enough to think that her chair-bound state is anyone's fault but fate's. Fate's, and if she's entirely honest, their father's. Governor Thropp is mostly a good man, if harsh, and a good father to Nessa, but he's always been far colder toward Elphaba. Nessa wouldn't say that the man _hates_ his elder daughter, but he certainly doesn't love her. That attitude is why he made their mother eat those infernal flowers when she was pregnant with Nessa, and why Nessa is the way she is — and why her mother is dead. 

So no. Nessa does not blame her sister for her disability, as much as Elphaba would wish to take that guilt. She does, however, blame Elphaba for the way she treats her. It took her years to figure it out, why the sisterly care and affection Elphaba gave so freely and overtly had a sour sense on the edge of it, and once she had, there was no way to view her sister the same way again. Elphaba does not care about her as a person, Nessa had realized one day, she cares about her out of guilt. 

Nessa has never said a word about that epiphany to anyone, no even Boq, but knowledge like that festers. She loves her sister, but she's also glad to be free of her for a few days now and again. It's refreshing not to have that overbearing air of protection around all the time. She has a roommate who's more than happy to help her with minor tasks she can't manage in her chair, and she has Boq. She's content — more than that, she's _happy._

Elphaba and Galinda go to the Emerald City. 

Glinda comes back alone. 

She's strangely subdued for a day or two before she reverts back to her usual airy _blondeness._ During that time, she pulls Nessa aside — Nessa tries not to resent the starry-eyed way Boq stares at the older girl; she is a bit larger-than-life, after all — and explains what _really_ happened with the Wizard. Nessa doesn't fully believe either story she's been told, though. 

Galinda — Glinda, she's been very firm in telling people since she returned — is born for politics. Nessa is a governor's daughter, and she knows politicians, so she knows this deeply. Glinda is cut from the same cloth as her father is, which is why Nessa is mildly skeptical of her story — Ozness knows Glinda is biased, and biased politicians are the most likely to twist things to fit their narrative. 

That's also the reason Nessa doesn't trust the official proclamation that her sister has betrayed all goodness and gone rogue. She _knows,_ without doubt, that a solid half of Madame Morrible's story is patently false — Elphaba was the one invited to meet the Wizard, not Glinda, so there was no way she could have "snuck along" and "burst out in a fit of jealous rage". Elphaba can be jealous, occasionally, and she can certainly get very angry, but she's not wicked the way Morrible and the rest of the teachers and officials wish them to believe. 

So Nessa takes both Glinda's story and Madame Morrible's with a grain of salt, along with her own knowledge of her sister, and puts two and two together when the reports start to appear of a black-clad vigilante freeing captive animals. 

Nessa goes on with life, spends as much time as she can with Boq, and wonders if she should feel guilty about how little she misses Elphaba. She's not _glad_ that Elphaba is gone, but she doesn't really feel her absence, either. Nessa is still just as dependent on others as she always has been, but she's no longer dependent on the same one person, and that's strangely nice. 

Elphaba and Galinda go to the Emerald city. 

Glinda comes back alone. 

Six months later Nessa receives a letter in a black envelope. 

When a teacher's aide slips into the classroom and whispers in the professor's ear, pointing covertly at Nessa, she's certain it has to do with Elphaba and her actions. In a way, she supposes later, it does. Their father has died, apparently from stress and shame. He has never been anything but loving and proud of Nessa, which means the only reason for that shame is Elphaba. 

Nessarose and Glinda go to the Emerald City.

They stand before the floating mask and disembodied voice that is the Wizard, and Glinda's eyes flash in a way that Nessa thinks, through her grief, might be anger. They are both courteous, despite the rush of feelings — mistrust and distaste radiating off of Glinda the more Nessa pays attention to it, and for her part, she's almost blind with grief and bitterness. 

It's irrational, because high blood pressure probably would have taken their father sooner or later anyway, but rationality is nowhere in Nessa's mind today. She is the new governor of Munchkinland, Glinda is promoted to acting ruler of the Quadling Country, just south of the Emerald City. Nessa's father is gone, her sister doesn't come to his funeral or this ceremony, and for the first time, Nessa blames Elphaba. 

Madame Morrible may be lying through her teeth about what happened seven months ago, but whatever the circumstances has been, it's caused their father's death. Nessarose Thropp is now an orphan, and even indirectly, it's Elphaba's fault. 

Nessa and Glinda go to the Emerald City. 

They part ways and never see each other again. 

Nessa is surprised to find, weeks later, that she wishes she was still at Shiz. Boq is preoccupied with things in his own mind — he wants to leave, go visit Glinda, who never even gave him a second thought —, and all the people she knew growing up have no time for her. She locks down the province, because she's desperate for familiarity, and she can't let anyone else leave. 

At Shiz, she had other friends. She had her roommate who always gave her a helping hand. She had teachers who were kind to her by choice, not because she was their governor and they feared her. Boq loved her, then, and stayed with her because he wanted to. She had Elphaba there, too, and even if she was livid at her sister for so many reasons, she was at least _familiar._

Even Fiyero and Glinda were kind to her at school — Fiyero is the new captain of the Wizard's guard now, she's heard, and he and Glinda are engaged. Nessa has not received a wedding invitation. 

She sits in her chair all day and longs for familiarity, and for freedom. She keeps up on the news reports, follows the story of the so-called "Wicked Witch" — is it bad, she wonders, that she misses Glinda worse than she does her own sister? — and her bitterness stirs from a simmer until it's boiling. Elphaba has almost unlimited power — it's her birthright, it seems, based on how she's always taken to those magical skills, whereas most Ozians have to practice for years to nurture the glimmers they are born with — and she uses it to free animals. _Animals._

Why won't she free her own sister? Nessa has been trapped since birth, which is what Elphaba is so against when it comes to these creatures, but it seems she's been forgotten, or else consciously abandoned. Either way, Nessa's conclusion that Elphaba had never cared about her for _her_ is being proven with every day that passes. 

Elphaba comes to Munchkinland. 

She appears out of a closet, of all things, and she doesn't even know that her own father is dead. If Nessa weren't so angry with her, she would laugh — she's been flying all around Oz for months now, certainly she must have picked up on at least _some_ gossip. As it is, she screams. She snaps and yells and Elphaba just stands there and takes it. If she yelled back, that would be better — it would validate Nessa's maelstrom of emotions — but she just watches her with an expression that looks like she's just sped through all five stages of grief in half a clock-tick, and has the audacity to seem shocked when Nessa asks why she hasn't fixed her. 

For someone who spent her entire life carrying the guilt for Nessa's disability and their mother's death, and who now should — rightfully, in Nessa's mind — carry even more for the death of their father, she's clearly shrugged all that off as easily as she lets her cloak fall to the floor. Her shock turns to determination, though, tinged with a hint of excitement, as she pulls out that infernal book. 

Nessa can stand. She's walking for the first time in her life, thanks to the shoes Elphaba enchants, and it feels like the most freedom she's ever had. Her anger is still there, but it's masked in joy. 

The joy melts away when Boq asks to leave. He _can't_ leave, she needs him — if no longer to help her physically, then emotionally. Just like the realization of years ago that Elphaba's love is just guilt, the realization that Boq never loved her both chills and burns. It makes too much sense, and that's the worst pain Nessa has ever felt — even worse than the spell being cast on the shoes she's now standing in. 

"A fit of jealous rage". Those are the words that Madame Morrible used to describe what happened when Elphaba and Glinda first went to the Emerald City. Now, they are the words to describe what Nessa does. She can't read the book, can't understand the words — she doubts even Elphaba can — but she says them and it nearly kills Boq. Hearing his cries of pain snaps her out of it and Elphaba pushes her roughly aside to snatch the book away. 

Elphaba comes to Munchkinland. 

Nessa doesn't know if it's a good thing or not. 

She can walk now, yes, but she's lost Boq. She can't blame anyone else, and now she understands her sister better than she could before. Elphaba's guilt must be bad enough, but unlike hers, Nessa's is _valid._ What happens to Boq really is her fault. 

She lashes out after that, taking out all her pain and guilt in a reckless regime that makes the Munchkins — who were supposed to be under her care — fear her even more. Her father was harsh enough, and his daughter is worse. She knows, in some small part of her mind, that this is not the way to handle her emotions, but she's lost the ability to care. The numbness that began with not missing Elphaba has spread to every facet of her life. 

When the storm comes, Nessa thinks it's fitting. Her entire life is at her feet, quite literally, and the thunder and rain are like a soundtrack to the hatred that's bloomed in her chest. She snaps at the Munchkin child who tries to get her attention, and turns just in time to see the house — a _house,_ for Ozness' sake, and a human one no less — flying toward her on the tail of a whirlwind. For a split second, she wants to cry, all the bitterness and anger and grief finally releasing in a healthy way, but then the house falls. 

Nessarose dies. 

Elphaba comes full circle.

**Author's Note:**

> just to clarify, this is just meant to be Nessa's thoughts and feelings. I personally don't believe that Elphaba only cared about her out of a guilt complex, I just wanted to explore what I think Nessa's internal monologue may have been 
> 
> if you want to leave a comment, I would love hearing your thoughts! :)


End file.
